Oh, Hollywood. Will you ever learn?
The answer is yes, it will, but it might be a little too late by the time the lesson really sinks in. Tinseltown's ideological bubble might be shrinking constantly, but it's still as solid and impenetrable as ever. Those who exist in it know nothing about the real world, as comedian Ricky Gervais once said.
So they keep making movies that no one wants to see except for those who exist within said bubble, or at the very least, want very much to live within it too. Actors, directors, producers, entertainment media, and die-hard Hollywood obsessed subsist on back pats from each other while their movies fail, and the rest of America distances itself from their culture.
America keeps sending the message that, when it comes to leftist values, we're just not that into it. As I wrote in my last VIP on Wednesday, the moment that message became clearer than crystal was the moment Sydney Sweeney zipped up her American Eagle jeans in that commercial. We're over leftist culture and the "rules" they require everyone to follow, be they regular people or major corporations.
Read: American Eagle's Success Proved to Corporate America That the Culture Is Done With Leftist 'Rules'
Yet, Hollywood just keeps pressing on, like they don't know how to do anything else.
Proof of this is in its latest bomb, One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, a film that apparently bears the message that one needs to keep fighting tyranny because one's family needs you to.
According to The Daily Beast, the film is an "Antifa Rallying Cry, and it was made just in time for the current year:
One Battle After Another is a gonzo antifa rallying cry that contends, ultimately, that there’s nothing worth fighting for more than one’s kin—and that doing so will, in turn, instill them with the passion to carry on the war against tyranny.
Consequently, it’s feverishly attuned to the simmering fury of 2025 America. For all its revolutionary fervor, though, it falls short of the urgent poignancy and humor that might have made it a film to adore rather than just greatly admire—a state of affairs that, in the end, renders it a battle that’s only partially won.
The movie is, of course, being celebrated by critics with its rating at 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Even its audience score is at a decent 85 percent.
The issue is that while the audience score is high, the audience is rather small. According to Variety, the film opened to only $22 million:
Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s comedic action thriller “One Battle After Another” topped box office charts in its debut, collecting $22.4 million from 3,634 North American theaters over the weekend. The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as an ex-revolutionary on the run, added another $26.1 million internationally for a global tally of $48.5 million.
Box office experts are mixed on what to make of those initial results. A low $20 million debut is disappointing for a film that cost above $130 million to produce and another $70 million to market. And “One Battle After Another” certainly requires a huge turnout — roughly $300 million globally — to break even theatrically. That’s because ticket sales are typically split 50-50 between studios and theater operators.
Getting to $300 is, at this point, not looking good, and you can tell the Hollywood press is doing its level best to generate interest in the film by claiming that $22 million is actually a good thing.
But even the Hollywood press is demonstrating that it's not seeing reality through the bubble. Calling a movie Antifa-adjacent isn't exactly going to bring the boys to the yard. America is kind of over it, as evidenced by the fact that Trump labeling them a terrorist organization is something people largely approve of. As reported by Rasmussen, people approve of Trump's actions by a majority:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 53% of Likely U.S. voters approve of the executive order Trump issued last week, including 39% who Strongly Approve. Thirty-six percent (36%) disapprove of the president designating Antifa as a terrorist organization, including 26% who Strongly Disapprove. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.
Hollywood is trying to sell a 3-hour-long film about freedom fighters in a tyrannical world to a room with only a few people in it.
It's not exactly good business, and as I've written previously, Hollywood's marketing strategies leave a lot to be desired nowadays.
Read: Hollywood Still Isn't Getting Why Its Product Is Failing
Fewer and fewer people have the patience to be preached at or sold values we simply don't have as a country.
Yet Hollywood refuses to learn this lesson. They're like that artist who is more focused on doing this kind of work because it's "important" for the arts than actually creating something that can be enjoyed by people.
To which I say, fine. Have fun playing your fiddle while the Titanic sinks.
